Moses ben Jacob ibn Ezra, known as Ha-Sallaḥ ("writer of penitential prayers") (Arabic: أَبُو هَارُون مُوسَى بِن يَعْقُوب اِبْن عَزْرَا, romanized: Abū Harūn Mūsà bin Yaʿqub ibn ʿAzra, Hebrew: מֹשֶׁה בֵּן יַעֲקֹב הַסַּלָּח אִבְּן עֶזְרָא, romanized: Mōšē bēn Yaʿăqōḇ hasSallāḥ ʾībən ʿEzrāʾ) was an Andalusi Jewish rabbi, philosopher, linguist, and poet.
He held a crucial administrative office in his home province, evidenced by his Arabic title of sahib al-shurta.
[5] Based in hints in Ibn Ezra's poems, S. D. Luzzatto speculated that he might have permanently left home due to a failed courtship with his niece.
In the Kitab, Ibn Ezra attempted to use both Arabic and Hebrew forms of metaphor with passages taken from both the Qur'an and Bible.
Ibn Ezra was predominantly interested in the poetic aspect of metaphor whereas Maimonides had a pure philosophical intent in his definition.
[7] Ibn Ezra's most successful work was the "Kitab al-Muḥaḍarah wal-Mudhakarah", a treatise on rhetoric and poetry written about the "Adab" writings of the Arabs.
[8] In the first four chapters Ibn Ezra writes generally of prose and prose-writers, of poetry and poets, and of the natural poetic gift of the Arabs, which he attributes to the climate of Arabia.
He concludes the fourth chapter with the statement that, with very rare exceptions, the poetical parts of the Bible have neither meter nor rhyme.
In the seventh chapter, Ibn Ezra discusses the question of whether it is possible to compose poetry in dreams, as some writers claim to have done.
Ibn Ezra uses Arabic examples to illustrate the badi, twenty rhetorical techniques found in the Kitab al-Muhadara.
The presence of the badi in Ibn Ezra's work reflects a tension among Arabic, Greek, and biblical authority.
In this part of the work, Ibn Ezra gives more credit to the Greek and Hebrew influences on literary techniques and refrains from praising Arabic style.
[7] In essence, Ibn Ezra's style is a result of different sources and influences which helped him develop his own poetic definitions.
); love-sickness and the separation of lovers (iv, v.); unfaithful friends (vi); old age (vii); vicissitudes of fortune and death (viii); confidence in God (ix); and the glory of poetry (x).
Although Arabic was used in prose works by Jews and Muslims alike, intellectuals and poets who wrote in Judaeo-Arabic were in the minority at the time.
[10] Many of Ibn Ezra's 220 religious compositions are found in the mahzor, the traditional Jewish prayerbook for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
These poems invite man to look within himself; they depict the vanity of worldly glory, the disillusion which must be experienced at last by the pleasure-seeker, and the inevitability of divine judgment.
Unlike his predecessors, Ibn Ezra begins his review of Biblical history not with Adam, but with the giving of the Torah.
The piyyuttim which come after the text of the Temple service, especially the piyyut "Ashrei" (Happy is the eye that beheld it) are considered by many to be of remarkable beauty.
One piece of literature that highlights Ibn Ezra's philosophical viewpoints was the "Al-Maqāla bi al-Ḥadīqa fi Maʿnā al-Majāz wa al-Ḥaqīqa."